One-handed, Nita snapped her manual shut with a feeling of profound satisfaction.
“ Where’s my bed?! ” Dairine shrieked.
“It’s on Pluto,” Nita said. “On the winter side, somewhere nice and dark and quiet, where you won’t find it if you look all day—which you’re not going to have time to do, because you’ll be in school.”
“Hah! I’ll sleep in your bed!”
“You hate my bed,” Nita said. “My mattress is too hard for you. And what’s more, my bed and every other piece of furniture in this house have been instructed that after I leave, they’re to teleport any living creature they touch right into the part of school where you’re scheduled to be at that particular moment in time. How you explain your appearance there is going to be your problem.”
“I’ll take the wizardry apart.”
“I’ve password-locked it. If you want, you can spend all day trying to unlock it from outside the house … and then still have to explain to Dad why you weren’t in school again. After he’s just spent an hour discussing the same subject with your principal. Meanwhile, if you want to sleep anywhere, you can do it on Pluto, if you like—but you’re not doing it in this house till after you get back from school.”
The bedroom door was flung open, and Dairine stormed through it, past Nita and toward the bathroom, head down, in a fury, refusing to give her sister so much as a glance. The severity of the effect was somewhat lessened by the dust bunnies that parted company with Dairine’s pajamas along the way, floating gently in the air behind her.
“I wish I knew what alien force has kidnapped my sister and left this vindictive thug of a pod person in her place,” Dairine said to the air, slamming the bathroom door shut. “Because when I find out, I’m going to hunt it down and kick however many rear ends it has from here to Alphecca!”
Nita stood there for a moment, watching a final dust bunny float toward the floor. “Enjoy your day,” she said sweetly, and went to get her book bag.
***
Her meetings with Mr. Millman were always about an hour before homeroom, so that they were finished ten or fifteen minutes before other students started to arrive for the day. The covert quality of the meetings was enhanced by the fact that Mr. Millman didn’t even have his own office, because he traveled from school to school in the district every day. Neither he nor anyone else in school knew where he was going to be from one session to the next. Nita most often found him in a spare office down in the administrative wing of the school, a room furnished with a metal desk and a few wooden chairs and not much else. Today he was there, sitting behind the old beat-up desk with the office door open, and working intently on one of those metal-ring puzzles in which the five constituent rings have to be interlaced.
This kind of behavior was typical of Mr. Millman, and was one of the redeeming features of having to deal with him. Whatever you might imagine a school shrink as being like, or looking like, he wasn’t that. He was young. He had a large, frizzy black beard that made him look more like an off-duty pirate or an escaped Renaissance artist than a psychologist, and his long lanky build and loose-limbed walk made him look like a refugee from a Cheech and Chong movie. Though he wore a suit, he did so as if it had an invisible sign on the back of it saying, THEY MADE ME WEAR THIS: DON’T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. He looked up at Nita from the ring-puzzle with a resigned expression. “Morning, Nita. You any good at these?”
“Morning, Mr. M.” She sat down in front of the desk and took the rings he offered her. Fortunately Nita knew how the puzzle worked, and she handed the rings back to him, braided together, in about fifteen seconds.
He looked at the puzzle with helpless amusement. “Halfway to a doctorate,” he said, “and I still have no grasp of spatial relationships. Remind me not to go into rocket
“ Where’s my bed?! ” Dairine shrieked.
“It’s on Pluto,” Nita said. “On the winter side, somewhere nice and dark and quiet, where you won’t find it if you look all day—which you’re not going to have time to do, because you’ll be in school.”
“Hah! I’ll sleep in your bed!”
“You hate my bed,” Nita said. “My mattress is too hard for you. And what’s more, my bed and every other piece of furniture in this house have been instructed that after I leave, they’re to teleport any living creature they touch right into the part of school where you’re scheduled to be at that particular moment in time. How you explain your appearance there is going to be your problem.”
“I’ll take the wizardry apart.”
“I’ve password-locked it. If you want, you can spend all day trying to unlock it from outside the house … and then still have to explain to Dad why you weren’t in school again. After he’s just spent an hour discussing the same subject with your principal. Meanwhile, if you want to sleep anywhere, you can do it on Pluto, if you like—but you’re not doing it in this house till after you get back from school.”
The bedroom door was flung open, and Dairine stormed through it, past Nita and toward the bathroom, head down, in a fury, refusing to give her sister so much as a glance. The severity of the effect was somewhat lessened by the dust bunnies that parted company with Dairine’s pajamas along the way, floating gently in the air behind her.
“I wish I knew what alien force has kidnapped my sister and left this vindictive thug of a pod person in her place,” Dairine said to the air, slamming the bathroom door shut. “Because when I find out, I’m going to hunt it down and kick however many rear ends it has from here to Alphecca!”
Nita stood there for a moment, watching a final dust bunny float toward the floor. “Enjoy your day,” she said sweetly, and went to get her book bag.
***
Her meetings with Mr. Millman were always about an hour before homeroom, so that they were finished ten or fifteen minutes before other students started to arrive for the day. The covert quality of the meetings was enhanced by the fact that Mr. Millman didn’t even have his own office, because he traveled from school to school in the district every day. Neither he nor anyone else in school knew where he was going to be from one session to the next. Nita most often found him in a spare office down in the administrative wing of the school, a room furnished with a metal desk and a few wooden chairs and not much else. Today he was there, sitting behind the old beat-up desk with the office door open, and working intently on one of those metal-ring puzzles in which the five constituent rings have to be interlaced.
This kind of behavior was typical of Mr. Millman, and was one of the redeeming features of having to deal with him. Whatever you might imagine a school shrink as being like, or looking like, he wasn’t that. He was young. He had a large, frizzy black beard that made him look more like an off-duty pirate or an escaped Renaissance artist than a psychologist, and his long lanky build and loose-limbed walk made him look like a refugee from a Cheech and Chong movie. Though he wore a suit, he did so as if it had an invisible sign on the back of it saying, THEY MADE ME WEAR THIS: DON’T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. He looked up at Nita from the ring-puzzle with a resigned expression. “Morning, Nita. You any good at these?”
“Morning, Mr. M.” She sat down in front of the desk and took the rings he offered her. Fortunately Nita knew how the puzzle worked, and she handed the rings back to him, braided together, in about fifteen seconds.
He looked at the puzzle with helpless amusement. “Halfway to a doctorate,” he said, “and I still have no grasp of spatial relationships. Remind me not to go into rocket
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